


North Past the Snowfields

by HeshMan96



Category: Final Fantasy VII (Video Game 1997), Final Fantasy VII Remake (Video Game 2020)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Clerith, Cold, F/M, I'll add more characters as needed, Winter, Work In Progress, bear with me, he's a tragic character fuck off, potential ripoff lmao, sephiroth changes, will update the rating as needed
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-12
Updated: 2020-08-28
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:41:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 18,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25216411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HeshMan96/pseuds/HeshMan96
Summary: An ancient secret lurks in the far north, where no one dares to visit. The planet suddenly freezes, and a group of friends set out to find out why. As the planet freezes around him, Cloud Strife finds love, loss, and other feelings amidst the howling winds and raging storms. A sinister plot unfolds, and everyone is put to a test they never thought was possible.
Relationships: Aerith Gainsborough/Cloud Strife
Comments: 10
Kudos: 42





	1. Nanaki I: Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This idea was the merging of several ideas I've had including "what if FFVII but cold" and "what if Clerith but cold" and other shit. I hope you all like it and I hope it isn't too much of a ripoff. I have big plans for this lmao. It's dumb and campy but please enjoy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sephiroth ventures to the far north. Aerith takes on more than she can handle. Nanaki braces for the coming storm. Him and Aerith await the arrival of something larger than either of them can fathom.

His white hair billowing out behind him, the man walked straight into the howling wind. The tundra came to life as the top layer of snow scattered, sending curtains of snowflakes dancing through the air. He thought the shapes the whirling snow made in the wind were beautiful. He made no noise as he walked. He left no footsteps.

The endless white went on for miles. It had been a while since the last tree he had seen. He was keenly aware of the cold. Ordinary men would die in minutes if they were not properly dressed. While he could endure the cold far longer than most, he still kept an eye on his fingers as they very slowly turned blue.

His face remained expressionless as he walked past corpse after corpse. The cold had preserved them well, but the thousands of years had taken their toll. While most were monsters, beasts, animals, many of them were humans: sunken faces, pale, cracked skin, hollow, empty eyes, but humans nonetheless. Some of the female corpses had frozen flowers braided into what was left of their hair. He felt sad. Fools. They should have accepted Mother. She was better than them. She could have helped them. Now they were all dead, but he would correct their final error. Mother would be free, and with Her, he would avenge the Planet, avenge them.

Some things were still alive here, he realized as he walked past a large set of tracks. A light smirk forced its way onto his mouth. He hoped they would be a challenge. He delicately fingered the hilt of the long, thin blade at his hip. A nodachi longer than he was tall. The light of the summer sun rippled on the blade. It almost looked like it was made of water.

The man with the sword continued walking. He could feel Mother. No more than a few miles off. It was bittersweet to be this close to Mother, for he could not free Her just yet. He felt the soft surface of the snow give way to something more solid. Somehow the steady tap of his feet on the ice was more unnerving than the muffled silence of the snow before. He thought of Her again to steady himself.

_Mother. Together we will purge the parasites. This world will be yours again._

The crater was coming into sight; he was almost there. He stopped to observe. Here the flat white nothingness was interrupted by towering stacks of boulders and debris, great ditches and smaller craters where boulders unearthed by the asteroid’s impact had come crashing back down. Odd, overgrown plants sprung up from the ice at his feet. Closer to the crater, the ice became rock and then became dirt. In that dirt, in a ring surrounding the rim of the crater, was a forest. These had to be hardy plants to survive up here. Wild and untamed shrubs shared space with ancient, gnarled trees. Occasionally a blueish-green wisp would dart through the trees and vanish. He saw flowers that defied description, thorns as long as swords, and every so often, mounds of deep green tentacles. A malboro. He lightly ran his fingers down his blade. He would have to be careful. Fighting a malboro alone came with too many risks. Better to avoid them. It was odd to see a forest here. Perhaps it was the Lifestream, so raw and close to the surface here, that gave birth to it. Past this small forest were the towering cliffs that made up the walls of the crater. They were spiderwebbed with cracks glowing a deep blue. Mother had to be beyond the wall. He had to do this.

He hissed suddenly as he took a step forward. The weather had changed. A cold unlike anything he had ever felt stabbed him, piercing into his heart. He felt its insidious comfort with every breath he took. _Calm down. Close your eyes. I will ease you to sleep._ Already the pain was giving way to murky numbness. Holding his breath, he looked around, icicles forming on his lashes. He could see it now, yes. Around the crater, the air was tinged with blue, hardly perceptible. It wrapped all the way around the crater and forest surrounding it and hundreds of meters beyond. A barrier. Mother had to be here. Why else would the vermin go to such effort? Beneath his feet the Lifestream writhed and thrashed. It flowed out in great waves here, healing the great scar on the planet while also trying to protect it. He tried another step and buckled to one knee. The cold leeched his energy far quicker than before. This air was poison. Then the ground beneath his feet began to quake as something shifted. It was time to leave. He heaved a deep breath, ignoring the piercing pain in his lungs, and threw himself backwards. He didn’t have much time to scramble for cover behind a boulder before it arrived. Shaking, he drew his sword. 

To his left, dozens of meters off, the ice began to crack as a massive creature surged from the depths. Sunlight refracted through its body, casting haunting rainbows on the ground. Curious, he leaned around his shelter. He knew this creature. But this complicated his plans. He could not fight one. Not like this, not here. 

_Another one? I thought I knew them all. Sapphire, Ruby, Emerald, Diamond, Jade, Ultimate, Omega… what would this one be?_

He looked at it and thought. _Crystal, perhaps?_

It lowed curiously, a sound that sounded like the cracking of a thousand ice sheets. He knew it was looking for him. But he had his ways of hiding. He relaxed his grip on his sword and sheathed it.

The earth rumbled as its feel rose and fell. It sniffed, its breath a tornado. But he remained calm. He had come too far to die now. He quickly shrank himself and dove beneath the snow, forming a hollow to huddle in. If its footfalls were loud before, now they surrounded him. One hand was on his sword and the other prepared to undo the spell if it found him. He felt its breath directly above him. Its exhale was impossibly cold. When it was over, he found himself unable to recall just how long he had spent under the ice. After an eternity, the creature shifted and stomped off. The air returned to frigid from murderous. Quietly, he reversed the spell and looked around the corner. The ice knit itself back together it settled back into the fissure from which it had emerged. A few moments later, it was as if nothing was there at all.

This was a complication. He would have to finish his mission from here. But no matter. Retreat was not failure.

_I’m sorry Mother. Wait for me. I wish I could have seen you._

If this winter magic affected him, _him_ of all people this much, how must Mother have felt all these years? The thought was maddening. Rage boiled in his gut. These fucking worms had the gall, the _nerve_ to hurt Her. Then he laughed, a hearty guffaw that did not care for the quiet he had thus far maintained. He would enjoy this. The green orbs in his wrist guard glittered as he gathered up his strength. He felt it building up inside him and just when it was about to consume him, he stopped laughing and released.

First, the air came alive. Every hair on his body stood on end as lightning forked down from the sky and with a thunderclap roaring like Bahamut himself, struck the crater, halting on the invisible barrier directly above the great walls. The shockwave threw muddy clouds of dust and snow at his face. He glanced warily at where he knew the monster still was. It had not yet awoken. Perhaps it needed a break.

The white-haired man gritted his teeth. Not enough. Maintaining Lightning with one hand, he cast Fire. An unassuming fireball burst out of his right hand until it made contact with the barrier. With a tremendous _boom_ , the fireball rapidly expanded, ballooning outwards and growing brighter until it appeared to be a small sun. He felt himself sinking as the ice turned to vapor around him. The forest burst into flames until the Lifestream arose to smother it. Slowly, the explosion dissipated. In its place remained an ashen smudge emanating plumes of smoke. Even that slowly vanished as green wisps snaked up from the ground and swirled around it.

He could feel his energy fading as he continued Lighting and reading another Fire. These spells were exceptionally powerful, now it was persevere or die. As he was above to release Fire, he heard it. A high, keening whine split the air and he collapsed to his knees with his skull vibrating under his skin. It was unbearable, the sound of pure suffering, it was awful, terrible, he could continue no longer, kill him, Hades take him.

_NoIamthesuperiorcreatureyoucannothurtmeyoufuckingvermin --_

The piercing whine ceased as suddenly as it had begun. He heard a hissing noise, followed by a great _whoosh_ and then silence. He was weak, _shivering_ , but it was no time to rest. He had to go. He quickly cast Haste then slotted an Elemental and Wind materia into his wrist guard. Within seconds, he had sprinted many kilometers away. Glancing back, he saw a small white crack in midair above the crater. It had almost killed him to produce so small an injury. But the Planet need not know that.

He stopped and turned around. Behind him, the great beast had emerged, letting loose an earsplitting roar. He spotted swathes of the ground collapse, revealing the Lifestream flowing underneath. Briefly he considered throwing himself in. But it would not do to risk so much when he had come so far. The wind around the crater began to swirl. Deep black clouds formed far in the sky above. Snow began to fall. Good. It was scared.

As he cut down an unlucky monster trying to impede his progress, Sephiroth smiled. Blood ran down his blade, staining the snow red.

* * *

The woods were blinding. The untouched coat of snow that blanketed everything caught the light and scattered it. To look too long at once spot was to go blind. A deathly silence filled the air. It was often like this here. Silent and bright.

The deafening silence was broken by the rhythm of dozens of hooves crunching through the snow. A herd of elk emerged from the edge of the forest, slowly plodding to the shore of a frozen lake at forest edge. A mild wind blew down through the valley. The trees shook, but what would have been the hollow rattle and rustle of thousands of branches and needles was smothered by the undisturbed blanket of snow. The cracked surface of the lake shifted slightly. And somewhere farther in the woods, a drift of snow was jostled off a branch, landing on and startling a shape waiting in the shadows between a particularly thick clump of trees.

His surprise was short lived as he quickly flicked his tail at the pile of snow on his back. The flame at the end of his tail made short work of the snow. His work complete, the shape continued his watch. He could not leave the shadow. The color of his fur stood out too much against the snow. His left eye glowed a dull yellow from the shadows while the right stared, milky white, scarred, and sightless. Faded mythril bangles adorned his wrists and ankles. 

Close to the edge of the forest, there was a tree. A girl crouched in its lower boughs of this tree. She wore furry white wolf pelts stitched together to form a parka. On her back was a backpack. The gaudy red logo had since been scratched off but had once read _Shinra Electric Power Company._ The hood completely covered her head, leaving her face in shadow. With one leather-gloved hand she leaned on the trunk of the tree. With the other she held an ornately carved silver staff bladed at both ends. In one of the many linked notches along its length sat a destruct materia. On edge, she watched the herd. She stared straight ahead with grim resolve. She did not like hunting.

Under the ice, under the water, another pair of eyes watched the herd. These were the palest blue, the color of glaciers on a summer day when the snows had thawed, and the light shined through their vast, jagged cliffs. The owner of the eyes was a curious thing. She looked like a cross between a wolf and a large cat. Her fur was darker than her eyes and very thick. So thick in fact that she felt nothing in the frigid water. All her paws boasted long, wicked claws which could cut through flesh and rock alike. She felt the soft current of the lake underneath the ice tug at her mane. Her tail was wrapped around a rock at the bottom of the lake, keeping her anchored. 

She flexed her claws as she waited for an elk to approach the edge of the lake. Two minutes prior she had dove underwater to await the herd. She couldn’t hold out for much longer. But one elk got closer. A female. She seemed to have three calves. The creature under the water tensed. Good. As the cow bent down to drink, she pounced.

Using her tail to pull herself to the floor of the lake, she braced her hind legs on the rock and erupted from the water. The elk stood no chance. A wave of bone-chilling water exploded out of the lake along with her as she sunk her claws into the female elk’s neck. With one swift bite to the neck, it was over. The rest of the herd lowed in fear and began to flee back into the forest.

From the forest, the shape with the flaming tail sprang into action. The sunlight that managed to pierce through the trees revealed his fur to be the color of rust. He had a tall ridge of dark brown fur on his head running along his spine that made him look taller than he was. Taking advantage of the chaos by the lake, he shot forward, bounding through the now-screaming elk. His beaded braids rattled as he ran. With his one remaining eye, he scanned the animals until he found his mark. A great buck, two meters tall and three with antlers, was at the rear of the herd. Unlike its herd, upon seeing the red beast, it lowered its head and bellowed a challenge. As the red creature was about to sink its claws into its neck, the buck jerked its head up. The antlers, sharpened by repeated fights with other bucks and against countless trees, scored a gash down the flank of the hunter. He yowled in pain and rage as his blood splattered across the snow. The buck charged, but it was the predator’s chance to strike. He waited until the last possible second then reared up on his hind legs, catching the buck’s charge with his front paws. A _clang_ echoed through the forest as his wrist guards stopped the beast’s antlers from shattering his wrists. The two animals wrestled until-

_Snap!_

The red beast snapped the antlers off the elk and sidestepped, allowing the elk’s momentum to carry it into a tree. The buck hit the tree headlong. The impact caused a great deal of snow to collapse from the tree, nearly burying the animal. Struggling, it dug itself out of the snow and began to run around dazed, mooing in pain. His brief anger at being injured gone, the predator felt only pity. There was no honor in unnecessary suffering. He leapt onto the elk, clamped its jaws on its neck, and wrenched back. He tasted blood. The elk died quickly.

The girl in the tree watched her two companions kill their own elk. She sighed. It was time to take a life of her own. She regarded the materia in her staff with apprehension. While the spell would take a great deal more effort than simply dropping down from the tree and plunging her staff into one of the fleeing animals below, she was no mood to hear the panicked screams of yet another dying child of the Planet. She looked at the herd below and selected an elk at random: a cow, running like the rest of its kin. Thank god, she did not have any calves. For a moment, she shut her eyes and muttered a prayer. Then she opened her eyes, pointed her staff at the cow, concentrated, and cast Death.

Without a sound, the cow went limp and collapsed on the ground, its prior speed from its fearful flight sending it crashing into the snow before it skid to a halt. The girl dropped from the tree, the thick snow below cushioning her fall. She walked over to the corpse of the cow and put her hand on it, smiling sadly. No matter how many times she did this, it never got easier. She knelt next to the carcass and blinked back a tear.

_The Planet will be happy to have you, little one. But I am truly sorry that I had to send you to her so soon._

The red beast padded over to her. Each movement of his tail made a sizzling noise as he whipped it over the snow. He looked sympathetic.

“I’m sorry Aerith,” he spoke. His voice was deep and firm, deceptively old. Though he softened it for her sake, it bore no false comforts. “It had to be done.” He looked at his own kill remorsefully. The flow of blood from its neck had slowed down to a trickle, steaming against the ambient chill. “I didn’t want it to suffer. It deserved a cleaner death.” He winced suddenly, becoming aware of the gash in his side. The girl called Aerith looked at it and gasped.

“Nanaki, you’re hurt,” she said. She sternly mentioned for him to lie down. She placed her gloved hands on his flank and moved them back and forth across his wound. A soft green light flowed from her hands as the opening knit itself shut.

“I’ll take care of you,” she said softly, lost in thought.

“Aerith?” asked Nanaki after a few moments of silence. Her eyes stared somewhere only she could see.

“Huh? Oh I’m fine!” she giggled, her mood suddenly shifting. “You silly cat, you’ve done this how many times now? I thought you were a better warrior than that.”

Nanaki growled, his face half buried by snow. “I was… foolish. Charged in headfirst. Grandfather would be ashamed of me.”

She stood up, her work done. He saw a smile through the shadow of her hood. “Well I patched you right up. I’m here now, but you can’t rely on me forever!” She scratched him behind the ears and ran a hand through his coarse spinal fur. Nanaki stood up and pulled away with a soft hiss. Aerith snorted. “Let’s see how Hima is doing. I’ll bet she got something good.”

Nanaki stared at her retreating back and opened his mouth to say something petulant but thought better of it. Yes, Hima would have something good. She always did. This time, she had killed a nice-sized cow and had just finished dragging it to shore. Nanaki could see the hole in the frozen lake where she had leapt from the water like a small Leviathan. The water trailed in rivulets down her fur. She seemed to not even notice her resplendence as she sparkled in the sun. Nanaki’s own fire kept himself warm, but the different between him and Hima was that Nanaki had to focus to keep himself warm while she simply _was_. She reached the shore and shook herself dry, spraying the other two with freezing water.

“Seriously?” barked Nanaki, annoyed. Aerith seemed not to care as she tilted her head at their chilly companion. Hima regarded them calmly.

“We have three kills, yes?” she asked. They nodded. “Good. We will be fed for a long time.” Seeing the dead buck in the forest, she regarded Nanaki. “Good kill. A big animal will keep us fed for a long time,” she said, almost sadly, not noticing she had repeated herself. “The hunt is good,” she said more to herself than to the others. Aerith seemed not to notice.

“So, how was being underwater?” She stepped closer and ran her hand through Hima’s mane. Hima and Nanaki were almost identical. The differences were she was slightly bigger, much furrier, and was blue. Where Nanaki was fire, she was ice. While Hima didn’t recoil at being pet, neither did she acknowledge it at all. She opened her mouth to say something again when a faint cry attracted the group’s attention.

Three soaking wet elk calves struggled to their feet. Their legs shook violently and all three collapsed, squealing pitifully. Aerith gasped. Hima turned her head to look.

“They were splashed by the water when I killed the prey. Stricken by cold. They will die. Better to kill them now. I will do it.”

She bared her teeth and padded slowly over to the deer. Nanaki grimaced. He did not like it but knew it would be a mercy to kill these abandoned children. They were cold, wet, and alone. They’d die at the next storm if they even survived the hour. There was no honor in killing children, whether you killed them or simply let them die.

“No!” screamed Aerith. She tore towards the elk calves, but Hima either did not hear or ignored her. Aerith ran past her and planted herself in Hima’s path yet did not draw her staff. Her hood had fallen.

“No one is killing anything else today,” Aerith snarled. Nanaki could have sworn that he felt the earth beneath his feet tremble as if someone far away had cast an earth spell. Fear set into him. Aerith’s eyes were green fire. He was unsure if Aerith and Hima would come to blows, but he wouldn’t take the chance. Nanaki leapt behind Aerith and took a seat, appearing calm, but he trembled slightly. They could defeat her, couldn’t they? He thought back to that day. The blizzard. The dragon. _The cold_. Now he was not so sure.

The confrontation continued. One second. Two. Then Hima sat on her haunches.

“As you wish. I will not kill the children. But this is the wrong decision.” Hima paused. “The snowfields are no place for children. No one should suffer the snowfields alone. You should have let me kill them.” She turned around and took the dead cow’s neck with her jaw, dragging it to the carcasses of the other two elk. Nanaki straightened up, his muscles relaxing. He saw the tension drain out of Aerith. She gingerly approached each calf and cast her magic, healing them, warming them with a fire spell, and finally muttering a prayer. The final calf turned around and screeched. It was a dreadful noise, but adorable nonetheless. Aerith smiled and waved at it before it too galloped off into the woods. Nanaki still doubted their survival.

She turned to Nanaki and her smile vanished. Her legs gave way. Nanaki ran and quickly positioned himself beneath Aerith, ensuring she wouldn’t deflate entirely. The girl was inches away from impaling herself on her own staff. She absentmindedly stroked Nanaki’s fur as she lay on him, her breaths long and pensive. She laughed weakly.

“Guess I tried too hard there, huh Nanaki?” she said faintly, all her divine anger gone. “Was that the right decision?”

Nanaki thought. The extra food would have been nice, but he understood her decision.

“They were young. Speaking as someone young, I know I would appreciate it if an older, stronger creature chose not to kill me.”

He felt her smile against him then heard her chuckle softly as she stood up. He did not understand what was funny, he had simply spoken the truth.

Aerith’s laughter faded as she looked around and noticed the sudden calm of the world around them. The elk were gone, and the wind had stopped. All was still. Frozen, you could say. She let out a long, trembling sigh. The sunlight illuminated her face. Her green eyes were captivating, little emerald discs that responded to the slightest change in lighting and mood. Nanaki supposed she was pretty enough by human standards. At the very least, she looked better than Hojo. The braid she normally tucked in her hood hung behind her, kept in place by a pink ribbon at the base. Nanaki knew there was some materia in the knot of the ribbon. Aerith claimed it was useless, and indeed it was. He had watched her attempt to make it function to no avail. The materia’s pale blue light had simply swirled about, unknowable and vast as the sky.

She tried to wipe a tear from her cheek. Nanaki chuckled as he watched her realize it was frozen and struggle with it until she finally tore it off. Aerith watched him laughing at her and pouted. Nanaki laughed harder at that until finally Aerith joined in and their laughter rang through the valley, eventually snuffed out by the snow.

Hima looked at them patiently as they continued to laugh. Aerith’s laughter faded to giggles and then to nothing. She placed her hand on Nanaki’s head.

“Thank you.” Her smile was radiant. Nanaki looked into her eyes. He nodded. In the distance he heard a faint peal of thunder. Wait, thunder? Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Hima jerk her head up, staring at the sky. She growled. Aerith suddenly doubled over, her hands clawing at her head. Her eyes were wide. A weak moan escaped her lips.

“Someone’s here,” she whispered.

Nanaki walked up and gently rubbed his head on her shoulder.

“Aerith? It’s just us.” She shook her head.

“No. He’s all dark, he’s all _wrong_ -”, She was cut off by the unmistakable noise of an explosion far in the distance. Aerith gasped. If she was afraid of whatever was happening, she did not show it. “She’s talking to me; she says he can hurt us… we have to…” She trailed off. Nanaki pushed her over and planted his front paws on her shoulders.

“Aerith! Snap out of it, now!” Nanaki growled in her ear. He waited until her breathing returned to normal to back off. She began to stir and with great effort, got to her feet. Him and Hima stared at her. Aerith exhaled softly and composed herself. With one sleeve she wiped a glittering sheen of sweat from her forehead. The wan summer sun suddenly felt hotter.

“I’m ready,” she assured, voice soft. Nanaki thought of asking her about what just happened, but Hima spoke up.

“We return. Now. Talk later.” Nanaki and Aerith exchanged a look. There was an edge of fear to Hima’s voice they had not heard since… Wordlessly, Aerith dissolved her staff and removed the three ropes from her pack. Aerith shifted uneasily, hesitating before using the ropes to attach the elk to the flanks of her friends. The two cows went on both of Nanaki’s flanks while the bunk was was securely fastened to Hima’s back. While she was bigger than him, Nanaki was surprised to find out he was stronger. One time he had been brave enough to ask why.

“Fur, Nanaki.” Her look was that of a parent indulging their child’s stupid question. “We are alike in many ways. I am larger. But I am fur and fat where you are muscle. I am warm. But I am not the strongest creature in the cold.” Her eyes lost their focus then, staring right through him. Somehow Nanaki didn’t think it was him she thought of when she spoke of strong creatures in the cold.

Aerith took a second to grin at her two beast companions. They looked like bizarre multilegged monsters with the limp elk tied to their flanks like pack chocobos. Her smile faded as they heard an enraged roar cut across the landscape, rolling over them like an avalanche. These roars were nothing new. The animals in the mountains were restless. But Hima jerked up, her eyes wide. She stayed that way for a long moment.

“We must go.” She paused. “Please.” Nanaki looked at Aerith, lost. She shrugged.

They were on the east side of the lake. The group went north. It was necessary to go around to the north side of the lake then to the western rim of the valley. The ground rose steadily around them. The trek home was uphill, always the hardest part. Their first obstacle was a river which flowed east from the lake and then made its way down south. Eventually it would briefly flow along the edge of the Great Glacier and from there through mountains until it reached the Cursed Valley and the Sleeping Forest. Its course there, no one knew. But it exited the Forest and passed by the side of Bone Village and emptied into the northern ocean. On a clear day, from the peaks of the mountain range surrounding Bone Village, if one looked northwest, they would see the Cursed Valley obscured in mist. Mysterious and tricky magic protected the valley. Those who attempted to enter would find themselves would find themselves somewhere else entirely, or worse, if the frozen corpses Nanaki had seen on the cliffs surrounding the Valley were any indication. There were two ways north from Bone Village. The first was through the Sleeping Forest, through whatever lay in the Valley, and through some caves further beyond which eventually opened onto the snowfields. Further south was the Cold Road which would take the weary traveler to Icicle Town. But the Sleeping Forest would allow none to pass. This left the other way. A road led up the foothills around Bone Village, carved many years ago by adventurers tired of their ambitions being curtailed by the Valley. This road wound through the mountains, bypassing the Valley entirely and connecting directly to the Cold Road. The journey was harsh, but preferable to tempting the Valley’s fury.

Looking southeast from the peaks, one could sometimes see a faint, sickly, green glow on the horizon. As if someone had put up a mockery of the sunrise but forgot to adjust the color.

Midgar. The power base of the Shinra Electric Power Company. The city of Mako. A marvel of engineering. Nanaki and Aerith once stood on the peaks of these mountains, thinking of the city which had once been their prison.

“I still miss it sometimes,” she said to him one day. When he looked at her curiously, she continued. “The steel sky. Out here, the sky… it’s beautiful. It’s endless” She paused, then took a deep breath. “But I can’t help but feel like it’s hiding something from me. I don’t know where my world ends. How much of it am I supposed to be responsible for? There’s so much I don’t know. About Mom. About the north. About this Planet. And… I don’t know if I’m ready to know about any of it. Maybe I should just accept that I’ll never find out. Maybe I’ll never be ready to find out.”

Nanaki had said nothing. He was a simple creature, sworn to protect the Planet. He knew nothing of what Aerith was going through. The melancholy silence persisted.

 _Doesn’t_ _helping the last Cetra count as protecting the Planet?_

He opened his mouth to say something he knew would be a meaningless consolation, but Aerith had already stood up. If she was forcing her smile, he couldn’t tell.

“Well, let’s go home! It’s been a long day, after all. Hima just caught us a bear, didn’t she? Got a big dinner coming your way.” She winked.

Nanaki snapped out of his memories as they reached the banks of the river. Here it was just a stream, but it was too wide to cross without getting wet. And getting wet was a death sentence. The flow was rapid. The river did not slow until it reached the glacier. Hima was the first to speak.

“Bridge. We need a bridge.”

Nanaki looked around. A bridge? Where were they meant to get a bridge?

“There!” Aerith ran off to a small snowdrift by the riverbank and began digging. With the help of Nanaki and Hima, they uncovered a collapsed tree. Aerith stood up and put her hands on her hips once they had uncovered more of the tree.

“Ok!” She exhaled. “Let’s get this thing across the river.” She summoned her staff and aimed it at the log.

“Wait,” Nanaki spoke softly, but forcefully. Aerith lowered her staff and tilted her head at him, confused. “Aerith, you used Death on the elk and overdid the healing spell on the calves. Are you sure it’s ok for you to keep using high level magic? You’re going to need your energy for later. And…” He hesitated, unsure to what to call her collapse.

“Don’t you worry about me. I’m pretty good at magic you know. It’s kinda my thing!” Nanaki did not protest, knowing she could not be swayed. Aerith concentrated for a few seconds and cast Gravity.

Hima simply watched, not missing the way that Aerith’s breathing grew heavier after she had dropped the log in position.

“I will cross first,” Hima rasped. “I cannot get cold. The fall will not affect me.”

Without waiting for an answer, she leapt onto the tree and crossed without incident. Nanaki did the same, the dead elk on either side of him helping his balance. He looked north. The sky that day was cloudless and pale blue. Looking straight up, it was all one saw. But in the north beyond the rim of the valley, just over the mountains, a storm was brewing. It was faint, simply a thin outline of darkness along the crowns of the jagged peaks, but such things never stayed put for long. Storms were either fast or slow, but never gentle. Nanaki turned around to see Aerith crossing the bridge unsteadily. The river flowed deceptively calm beneath her.

“Aerith. The weather’s gonna get bad soon. We have to hurry.”

“I’m coming!” she called over. A few steps later, she lost her balance and fell back, her arms pinwheeling madly. Nanaki called out, ready to act but not quite sure what to do, but Aerith caught herself before she could plunge into the freezing stream below. Hima waded into the river and stood below Aerith.

“I will keep watch in case you fall again.” She calmly stared at Aerith with her icy blue eyes. Aerith looked at her in surprise. Then she grinned.

“Thank you, ma’am,” Aerith said happily before skipping to the end of the log and leaping off and landing awkwardly, falling on her knees. Hima padded out of the river and wordlessly kept walking north. Aerith and Nanaki exchanged a look. Nanaki smiled his hideous toothy grin.

“Nice landing.”

Aerith lightly smacked his shoulder, laughing airily. As the trio continued walking around the lake, Nanaki noticed that Aerith did not dematerialize her staff. Once they reached the north side of the lake, they continued southwest.

There were other obstacles on the way back home: the aftermath of a landside which occurred long ago, some particularly deep snow drifts, through another forest, a desperate search for cover following the sighting of a blue dragon soaring overhead, but none were troublesome. Along the way they passed by the hot springs, and Aerith insisted on getting a chance to bathe. Only Hima’s assurance that she would eat her corpse without hesitation if she froze to death in the coming storm kept Aerith on course, albeit pouting heavily. Around an hour later, they reached the southwest corner of the valley. Ahead was a rough cliff face, jagged like broken glass. It stretched many meters above them, almost vertical.

Aerith lifted her staff. She smiled comfortingly before beginning to cast Mini on herself. This was their standard protocol so either Nanaki or Hima could easily carry her up the cliff. She quickly shrank to the size of a child but did not stop. Nanaki could see, even as she kept shrinking, that something was wrong. Aerith screwed up her face from the effort of casting the spell. Nanaki watched as sweat dripped down her brow and a drop of blood slowly emerged from her nose. No, this wasn’t right. Her eyes opened wide and she looked at him, pure shock written in her features.

He bowled her over and slammed his paw down on her, pinning her in the snow. Her staff, the size of a fork, spun away into the snow before popping back to normal size. Aerith did not. She was breathing heavily, now the size of a cat. Before Nanaki could chastise her, she passed out. He sighed. He picked her up in his mouth, trying not to let his tongue touch her. Hima walked over to the staff. With one of her paws, she dug out the gravity materia and rendered all three elk carcasses weightless before putting it back.

“She is not usually that weak. Something is wrong,” Hima growled softly. Again, that fear was present, a nagging tremble that defied Hima’s efforts to steady her voice. A chill ran through Nanaki that had nothing to do with the rapidly intensifying wind. “Keep her with you. I will take the staff. We run the rest of the way. The storm almost has us.”

Without waiting for assent, she took the staff and bounded up the near vertical cliff face. Nanaki darted to the side with a growl as pebbles and dust rained down from Hima’s ascent. Aerith lay limp between his jaws. He braced on his haunches and sprang up the cliff, his claws tearing into the rock when he needed them to.

Nanaki thought while ascending. Aerith had seemed off since the hunt. There was the Gravity spell. He had not noticed anything out of the ordinary as Aerith cast it, but she must have put in entirely too much energy into it. The healing spell and the fire spell on the calves combined with both Gravity and Mini had been entirely too much for her and she had lost control of the latter spell. Her headache and collapse also unnerved him. Without a doubt that had damaged her. But why? What had she seen?

“She’s talking to me,” she had said. Who could “she” be? Nanaki had thoughts, none of them good.

Aerith was a capable mage, probably one of the best he had ever seen in his forty-eight short years. More than that, not much shook her. The Cetra had secrets she hid well, but these had never impacted her magic abilities. Even if she had put maximum effort into every single spell she had cast that day, she should have been fine. Something else was wrong. Nanaki doubted she knew the answer.

The blizzard was on them as they reached the peak. Light flurries of snow zigzagged in the wind as it whispered in their ears. The feather in Nanaki’s fur fluttered violently as a gust almost knocked it out of its clip. He found Hima looking south, the staff at her side. When she heard him scramble up the ledge, she turned and spoke.

“It is better for her to stay small. Rest.” She took Aerith’s staff and cast Sleepel on their unconscious companion then refreshed the transformation. She looked at him, her blue eyes piercing. “We must run. Are you prepared?” He nodded curtly and the two animals sprinted across the mountain ridges. They ran south through the mountain range that made up the western rim of the valley. While leaping over boulders and crevasses, Nanaki marveled at the ease with which she had cast the spells. Hima rarely used magic, but she was very good at it.

He saw it then, a column of steam rising ahead, barely visible through the thick snow swirling down from the dark sky. Around them the mountains rose, sheer and grim, their ancient faces bearded by snow as they kept their eternal watcg. Four hours had passed since they had decided at noon to go hunting, yet the sky was dark, blanketed by raging grey clouds. Nanaki dismissed it as a freak storm but he was disturbed to see darkness in the summer.

Nanaki and Hima hopped down a cliff face and turned to face a tall spire of rock jutting from the ground. Behind them was the valley they had just climbed out of, stretching out languidly in the cradle of the mountains. In front was home.

A path led between several hot springs which bubbled merrily in defiance of worsening storm around them. The path behind them wound its way down the cliffs until it hit the Cold Road on its way to Icicle town. Ahead, nestled into a corner formed by the rock spire and a looming cliff that bent in an overhang, was a house. Nanaki always admired this house. It was a two-story cabin, built from the same black pine that made up the vast boreal forest they were mere guests in. Two stone chimneys protruded over the slanted roof: one for the fireplace and one for the kitchen. They padded through the snow on the pebbled path that led to the cabin. Wildflowers grew around the hot springs, the ambient heat shielding them from the merciless cold. Aerith kept these carefully. He would find her here often after a hunting trip. A single large pine kept a vigil from behind the house.

Ahead, Hima had reached the porch before him. She struggled to untie the elk from her back until Nanaki walked up the steps behind her.

“Allow me.” With difficulty, he untied the knot. It was hard to manipulate knots without thumbs. The corpse of the buck flopped onto the wood. Hima looked at him.

“Thank you.”

“No problem.”

Nanaki climbed up the steps and sat down on the porch. The two elk corpses were beginning to weigh on him. He watched with amusement as Hima attempted to enter the door with the staff still in her mouth and it bumped against the frame a few times before she realized the problem and turned sideways to awkwardly shuffle into the house. She dropped the staff, turning around to coolly stare at him as he failed to stifle his giggles. He walked forward and gently dropped Aerith in the doorway before he bit her in half laughing.

“Take care of her alright?” Hima tilted her head.

“No, you do it. I will see to the prey. Start a fire. Aerith must stay warm.” Hima padded over to him and cut the ropes binding the two cows to him with a hooked claw. Nanaki sighed internally. It would have been better to untie the rope; they could have used it again later. She busied herself with the buck, carefully freezing it. Nanaki watched as the tip of her tail glowed with a soft blue light. He shook himself and turned to go inside. Hima was right. Aerith needed help. He took her and laid her miniature form by the dark fireplace. Grabbing the transform materia, he undid the Mini spell and watched as she returned to her normal size. He pressed his nose to her neck. She smelled alive enough, thank the gods. Padding to the back door of the house, he exited to a triangular backyard framed by the cliff, the spire, and the house. The flowers grew wild here and the great pine that kept watch over the house now sheltered much of the garden from the snow that was not stopped by the overhang. At its base was a small shed, scarce large enough for more than five people. He found the firewood within and used the gravity materia he had taken from the staff moments earlier and floated it into the fireplace. With a flick of his tail, the fire roared to life. A few moments later, Aerith woke up. She looked around, frightened and frantic, until she realized she was home.

“Nanaki?”

“I’m here.” He walked over to her side and she wrapped her arms around him, burying her face in his fur for the third time that day. He’d never admit it, but Nanaki liked receiving affection from humans. They had the most wonderful ways of expressing it. “I was worried you were overdoing it.”

She trembled against him. It was frightening. Aerith _never_ trembled.

“The planet’s speaking to me,” she said faintly after tightening her grip on him. Nanaki’s heart skipped several beats. If the Planet was speaking to her, then… He thought back to Hima’s fear. She was levitating the three kills to the cellar, lost in her own world. He thought of the roar they had heard, of the far-off explosions and the tremors. Aerith continued in a small voice. “She’s in pain. Something scared her, and now she’s mad. I…” She trailed off. “She’s not thinking straight. She’s been alone for so long and she doesn’t think anyone is around to help her anymore.”

Nanaki thought hard. Hima. She knew something, that much was certain. Her reactions told as much. Aerith, as a Cetra, would undoubtedly get roped up in whatever was to come.

_I am sworn to protect the Planet._

The thought kept him grounded as the storm howled around them. In the distance a wolf added its voice to the burgeoning chorus, then another, until the false night rang with the promise of winter.

Aerith fell asleep by the fire to the rhythm of the hail that had just begun to fall. Hima walked back to find them lying there. She and Nanaki exchanged a look. His eye questioned her silently. She nodded before turning around to retrieve some food from the cellar. Aerith would be hungry once they awoke. That girl could eat an entire chocobo by herself.

Hundreds of kilometers away, the sun blazed in Midgar. A dizzy summer haze had settled over the city. Heat bounced back and forth between the metal plates, rendering the city an oven. Even after the sun had set, the metal assumed the night shift. The night was thick, and sleeping was impossible.

Cloud Strife awoke screaming, his nightmare still branded in his memory.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Leave a comment or send me something on [twitter!](https://www.twitter.com/heshman96)


	2. Cloud I: The Reactor Bombings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cloud helps Avalanche bomb a Mako reactor, wrestling with internal turmoil. He forces himself to keep going. Eventually, being stoic proves to be a major error.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's been so long. Life has caught up to me and I've had so much paperwork to do. College also starts next week and idk if I can commit to writing the next few chapters. Thank you so much to everyone who's reading this chapter. I worked really hard on it. Love you all!
> 
> A huge thanks to sub_divided for beta reading this chapter!

The mako poisoning messed with his dreams.

The first thing that hit him was the smell. The insufferable, all-encompassing mako spell that seemed to never leave him. Smell normally never came to Cloud during his dreams. They were vivid, intense, but they were always more sensations than events. This was confusing. He wanted nothing more than to awaken and return to his life, rotting in the shitty slums of Midgar and trying to ignore the whispers every time people thought he wasn’t looking. Anything was better than the ordeal within his own mind.

Around Cloud the world was an eerie green. Above him, the northern lights shimmered in their rainbow veils. He was standing on a thin layer of dirt. He bent down and with his armored left hand he scraped away the dirt to reveal dark brown stone underneath. Surrounding him were massive towers of rock, ranging in height from three to ten meters. He looked closer and noticed they were all leaning in one direction. In that direction was the source of the green light. It peeked out between the rocks, casting long, black fingers. Before he could look further, he was yanked forward roughly by an invisible force. It pulled Cloud downhill past rock after rock until he finally arrived at what appeared to be the lowest point in the area. It was a miracle he hadn’t broken his skull. Could he be killed here? Better not to dwell on it. Cloud patted the dust off his Soldier uniform and looked around him.

In the distance he saw a colossal wall dozens of meters high. In fact, he saw it in all directions; he realized it was a circular wall that wrapped all around where he was. It looked to be made of the same stone that he was standing on. He saw cracks spiderwebbed all along the walls, glowing the sickly, pulsating green of mako. From here at the bottom it was obvious that the ground around him sloped up in all directions until it hit the base of the walls. Cloud was in some sort of basin or… The word bubbled up unbidden, unprompted: _Crater_. The rock spires now pointed to him, from all directions. Like they were making fun of him.

Cloud screwed up his eyes as a painful memory began to surface.

_“Get the hell out of here you little creep!”_

_“You leave her alone!”_

_“Stay away from my daughter!”_

_His outstretched hand, small and frail. A little girl in a white dress, her long, dark hair shimmering as it fluttered in the breeze._

_“Tifa…” he felt himself whisper in the high, annoying voice of a child._

It was over. The pain faded in his head. Cloud scowled. Faded? Yeah, screw that. More like it had just gone to sleep, just waiting for an excuse to incapacitate him again. He opened his eyes, disappointed to find out he was still in the bas- _crater_. 

He finally turned his attention to the source of the green light. Here was a… Well he couldn’t quite see what it was. The light was blinding, but he saw a shadow within it. It was tall and twisted and it seemed to pulse like some grotesque standing worm. The light grew brighter. Cloud covered his eyes with his arm. It was hot now; any hotter and it would burn him alive. For a few harrowing seconds, Cloud thought his skin was about to melt off his bones. Then the light faded, and Cloud paused, breathing heavily with his arm still over his eyes. Upon hearing footsteps, he tensed. Cloud opened his eyes and his heart froze. No, it couldn’t-

“Mom?”

Claudia Strife walked towards her son, looking supremely out of place in the otherworldly _crater_. She wore a simple brown dress with a white apron. Her hair was wrapped in a messy bun. The smile lines around her eyes deepened as she saw her son. She could have come here from Nibelheim, just after removing a loaf of bread from the oven. She stopped in front of him.

“Cloud, sweetheart,” she said lovingly, softly, her hand caressing his face.

“Mom-” Cloud choked up. This couldn’t be possible. Mom was dead; _he_ killed her. But as Cloud felt her hand on his face, he didn’t care. Mom was alive. She was here. And for the first time in years, Cloud felt safe.

“How are you here?” He winced. Fucking idiot. He should have said something normal like _I missed you_ or _How are you?_ Claudia didn’t seem to care. She smiled.

“It doesn’t matter. I’m just glad to see you again. My little boy. So was I right?” She giggled, her eyes full of mirth. Cloud stared at her dumbly. “Don’t tell me you forgot! Have the girls in the city left you alone? I would be surprised if they have.”

The embarrassment was enough to snap him out his stupor.

“I- No Mom. They never started in the first place.”

“Well that’s surprising. But…” She caressed his chin. “I don’t believe you. Who could stay away from my beautiful son?” Claudia raised an eyebrow. She took her hand off her son’s face and placed both of them on her hips. “Who’s that other girl you were friends with? Tifa, right?”

A faint twinge of pain pulsed behind Cloud’s eyes.

“Yeah, Tifa and I… She’s still around.”

“I’m glad. You know, I always knew you two were meant to be together. Stay with her alright?”

Cloud thought of Tifa. She had been nothing but to good him since he arrived in Midgar. Oh well. No one asked her to do that. He owed her nothing.

“Cloud, honey. I’m so very proud of you.” She looked his uniform over, fierce pride in her eyes. “And of how strong you’ve gotten. But I need you to use that strength now. I need your help.” Faint alarm bells went off in Cloud’s head. Something was very not right. His mother was never this tense. Even during the harshest, most desperate winters, she remained smiling for the sake of her baby boy.

“I’m trapped Cloud.”

Claudia’s voice broke and with it broke the alarms in Cloud’s mind. He focused his full attention on his mother.

“I’m stuck, Cloud. Stuck here in the north. I need you to help me. I need to see my boy again.”

She turned away to look at the sky.

“I’ve been alone for so long, Cloud. Bad people locked me up here. I don’t know what they want. After all, I’m a nice lady.” She smiled weakly. 

“Mom, what are you talking about? I don’t understand any of this. How are you even…” _alive?_ He stopped himself before saying it.

Claudia smiled.

“Didn’t I tell you not to worry about that? My point is, Cloud, I need you to come and help me. I’m stuck here and it’s so, so cold.”

Cloud twitched his right hand.

“I need you to come help me, Cloud. I’m not too far from Midgar.”

She tried to reach for his face again, but Cloud stepped back. How had she known he was in Midgar?

“Come on, honey. You don’t have to come alone. I’d love to meet all the friends you made after leaving home. Tifa too, I didn’t really see her when you were little. She has to be, what, twenty now? I’m so glad you two are together after all this time. A younger girl would be good for you, you know. You deserve someone looking up to you. My big, strong boy.” She sighed happily and put her hands on Cloud’s shoulders.

Every hair on Cloud’s body stood on end. Something was _very_ wrong. He recalled something his mom had said to him in Nibelheim.

_“An older, more mature girl who could keep you on the straight and narrow— and tell you when you’re being a silly goose.”_

He grabbed his mother’s wrists and removed her hands from his shoulders. He stepped back, his right hand flying up somewhere over his right shoulder. All this time Cloud had not felt the familiar weight of his sword on his back but as he reached for it, he felt its weight. He drew the sword over his shoulder, over a meter and a half of cold, unyielding steel. Two materia slots sat at the base near the hilt. Old dents and scars littered the lengths of its single edge. The sword weighed around firty-five kilos, but it was nothing to Cloud.

“You’re not my mom.” Cloud’s eyes, sky blue infected with sickly green, stared calmly at his mother. Any love he had when she first appeared was gone. Mom was dead, cut down in Nibelheim. This was something else. Claudia reached out for her son.

“Cloud, sweetheart, please. There’s no need for that, you know I love you.”

For a moment Cloud hesitated. He felt a tear in his eye. This was his mother wasn’t it? The thing that was not his mother touched his hand, and he remembered his real mother, bleeding and burnt on the floor in the wreckage of their house. This was not her.

His sword lashed out, taking her arm at the elbow and severing it clean. The arm thudded to the ground. Claudia reeled back, blood spurting from the stump of her arm. _Blue_ blood. Cloud watched as the dirt folded like clay and swallowed the arm.

Claudia smiled, a grin that literally went ear to ear.

“Well I guess I should have done more research.”

Her mouth didn’t move. Cloud’s ears erupted in pain as the voice seemed to come from the very air. Through tears, he saw his mother’s skin slough off into the earth. She seemed to melt before his eyes. The pain faded and as Cloud straightened up, he saw the thing which had been his mother.

It was a woman, that much was true. But that was where the similarities ended. She was blue skinned, veiny, and naked. Her arm was gone where he had cut it off. Her eye – no, _eye_ – was closed.

She was completely smooth, no pores, no nipples, no opening of any kind below her neck. Her blue skin was flecked with purple. Cloud watched with horror as an eye opened up on her right breast where the nipple should have been. It was a deep purple and looked at him hatefully. He tore his eyes away to look at the woman’s face. His mother’s face was gone, replaced by another. Her blueish-purple hair cascaded down her shoulders. One red eye gleamed in her face, the other nonexistent. Instead there was skin, as if there was never an eye there in the first place. Her dark green lips spread apart in a ghastly grin. Out of her mouth and through her extraordinarily white teeth crawled a centipede. Cloud stood transfixed as she backed away and eventually disappeared into the ghostly green light. For a moment all was quiet. 

_FREE. ME._

The harsh voice reverberated through his skull, terrible and beautiful at the same time. A goddess had to be speaking to him. There was no other being that could speak like this. Cloud clutched his head as television static filled his vision.

_FAR IN THE NORTH. HELP ME, MY BOY. MY SON._

The crater disappeared as a brighter and brighter white light consumed Cloud’s vision. The pain surrounded him.

_Fuck. This is it. Tifa… I’m sorry. I can never stop failing you._

He saw a hand in a black glove reach through the void. Without thinking, he grabbed it and it roughly pulled him up. Cloud found himself nose to nose with Sephiroth. His mako infused catlike eyes pulsed softly. The rich bass of his voice spread through Cloud’s body, calming him as every instinct he had screamed at him to thrash, flail, do anything to escape.

“Help me, Cloud. We are friends, no?” He gestured behind him and the white void was gone. He and Sephiroth stood in midair above the crater. Below them a magical barrier that surrounded the crater spasmed. Cloud saw a crack in it, streaming green as the Lifestream tried to repair it. Beyond the lights of the crater, in the pitch blackness left in the absence of the northern lights, Cloud saw the silhouette of _something,_ incomprehensibly large. With the hand not holding Cloud’s wrist, Sephiroth gestured behind him.

“You’ll know where to go, Cloud. We have to free our Mother. After all, we are Brothers, are we not? And I cannot do it alone.” He turned back to Cloud, a sly smile on his face. “North, past the snowfields.”

With his last bit of willpower, Cloud spat in Sephiroth’s face. It landed on his cheek.

“My mother is dead,” he growled, hoping he sounded intimidating enough. Sephiroth’s smile did not falter.

“Mother will soon be the Mother of all.” He blinked, slowly. “You may feel that way now, but when the ice winds wrap around our precious Planet, as she chokes in Mother’s embrace, when the ancient guardians rise without a true enemy to fight, what will you do then, Cloud? You know where to find Her. You know where I will be.”

He leaned in, his lips brushing against Cloud’s ear.

“Maybe you won’t come. But there is a chance, perhaps. I have faith that whatever you choose to do, you will not disappoint me,” he whispered. Cloud saw a vision: himself with catlike eyes, raising a sword over an unknown body and crying. Sephiroth suddenly placed both his hands on Cloud’s chest and pushed. Cloud tumbled back and flailed as he fell, screaming and sobbing as his memories cracked in his mind. He was falling, falling, falling…

With a gasp Cloud jerked awake from his sleep. Every instinct in his body screamed at him to get ready for a fight, but something was wrong. His arm burned where Sephiroth had touched him and he felt sluggish, as if someone had tied weights to his neck. With a burst of effort, he quickly rolled himself over and threw his right hand to where he knew his sword was. There was a nasty crunch and a deafening crash as his sword thudded to the ground.

With a yelp, he pulled his hand back as his felt blood begin to seep from his knuckles. Gasping, Cloud clutched his hand to his chest as warm streams of blood poured out of his glove where he had split it. As the sluggishness of his dream faded away, he realized in his desperation to grab his sword he had punched the edge of the blade. He grimaced as the pain intensified, the adrenaline fading.

_Well better to take a look at it now._

As Cloud Strife limped over to the light switch next to the door of his dingy one-bedroom apartment, he thought of the past day.

The heat had been insufferable. The undercity was never cold, which was great in winter, but in the summer it was like standing behind the exhaust pipe of a semi. Gusts of noxious wind roared down from the colossal vents many meters above. Just the other day, Cloud and Barret had been asked to come help with bodies. People had collapsed from the heat and it wasn’t like Shinra was about to help. Cloud remembered the shell-shocked look on Barret’s face upon seeing the corpse of a little girl in a pink dress. He thought the commander was about to cry.

The smell of smog hung around, thick and disgusting. The Avalanche members in Seventh Heaven would often look at the sky and scowl at the vents that constantly spat the putrid air onto the slums below.

And the day before the heat wave was the mission. He remembered it clearly.

_“Alright team, this is Mako reactor 1 we’re destroyin’ today. And you merc, you better be worth every last gil.”_

_Barret Wallace was a huge man with dark brown skin. He stood almost two and a half meters tall. He wore a black bulletproof vest that by some miracle fit him and over that a faded leather jacket. His cargo pants were an olive green and he covered his cinder block sized feet with enormous black boots. A black beard framed his jaw and two old scars lined his face just beneath his left eye. His hair, just a little bit darker than his skin, was tamed on the sides but given a little freedom on the top of his head._

_He set the barrel of the gatling gun he had in place of his right arm on Cloud’s shoulder. Cloud tensed. One hand on the hilt of his sword, he considered the possibility of cutting his employer in half if necessary. His firepower would be useless at this range._

_Then Barret walked away without a word._

…

_The rumbling of the collapsing reactor surrounded Cloud as he fled. He took the rear of the fleeing group making sure no one tailed them. Ahead of him was Jessie, then Barret, Biggs, and Wedge. An explosion knocked a pipe off to their left. It came crashing down on the catwalk and pinning Jessie underneath. Cloud heard her struggle, clawing at the catwalk trying to free herself to no avail._

_Despite all his instincts telling him to run, his knowledge that his employer would likely murder him if he left her as well as something… else convinced him to take his sword and cleave the pipe in two before kicking it off her into the slums below them. He winced internally._

Hopefully that doesn’t kill anyone.

_Wait why did that matter? Whoever it hit was nothing to him, someone he didn’t know._

_With his left hand he roughly pulled Jessie to her feet before relaxing his grip. He stared into her hazel eyes, steady, his hand still on her arm._

_“You ok?” he asked gently. Another explosion rumbled around them. Jessie giggled unflinchingly._

_“I guess you proved me wrong, Mr. Merc,” was all she said before pelting the other way._

_“Guess that’s a yes,” Cloud called after her, confused and annoyed._

_“What the hell are you two doin’?” roared Barret as Cloud and Jessie made their way to the exit._

_“Experimenting,” called Jessie as she ran past._

_Barret turned to Cloud with one eyebrow raised and a scowl on his face. Cloud simply shrugged._

_…_

_Whispers filled the train car. Laborers clad in working clothes and safety vests mingled alongside white-collar corporate managers amid the oppressive tension. Above them all a female voice whined harshly over the intercom._

Please be aware that security has been tightened in response to the terrorist attack by the group Avalanche in Sector 1. Additional ID scans, drones, security personnel, and other measures have been deployed. Shinra thanks you for your cooperation in these tragic times.

_Barret looked grimly at the intercom as it shut with a soft click of static. He had picked up a large black cloak along the way from an Avalanche stash to wear over himself to cover his gun. He still wore his signature sunglasses under his hood. The others had not changed; Jessie, Biggs, and Wedge were inconspicuous enough not to warrant it and Cloud had an alibi if anyone questioned his appearance._

_Cloud stood on the far side of the cabin, away from everyone else. His gaze was steady as he watched the passengers murmur among themselves._

_“I heard it was Wutai again.”_

_“Wutai? Ah shit, we need more Soldiers. All the best ones are dead.”_

_“My grandmother lives in Sector 1…”_

_“Has anyone seen my kid? Please!”_

_“You see the size of that dude’s sword?”_

_The mission had gone well. But Cloud could see something was wrong. The other members of his team all had queasy expressions on their faces. Well, almost. He couldn’t see Barret’s face, but Cloud had seen enough to know that Barret cared about other people. A liability._

_Wedge sat on the opposite side of the cabin from Cloud, doubled over with his head in his hands. Biggs stared at the ground with a frown on his face. He looked agitated. Though his face was hard, Cloud could see his eyes were worried. Last was Jessie. She paced in the corner, muttering to herself. Against his better judgement, Cloud decided to go to her._

_For a few moments, she noticed nothing. Then she jumped._

_“Ah!” she yelped. “How long have you been standing there?”_

_“Not long.”_

_“Good thing you’re here. I need your help with something.” She fired off her words like a machine gun. “You’ve seen explosions, right? I thought so. You think some tiny-ass bomb like we had up there could have destroyed Sector 1? No way, right?”_

_“No. Jessie, the explosion? It wasn’t your fault.”_

_Jessie stared as if he had grown a second head. Then she grinned and planted her hands on her hips._

_“Look at you, acting all soft!” She giggled and flicked his nose. Cloud scowled but did not otherwise react. Jessie’s expression softened to a shy smile. “But thank you, Cloud. This leaves another problem. Something set that off that wasn’t us. And I’m gonna find out who!”_

_She turned back around to resume muttering to herself._

_Cloud raised an eyebrow, almost smiling. Jessie was crazy, a good crazy, and he found it weirdly endearing._

_He hooked one hand into a strap hanging from a bar in the train to steady himself. The other guys were all lost in their thoughts. Cloud joined them._

_…_

_“So how was it up there?”_

_Cloud and Tifa walked home from the bar. Her hair fell to her waist, the longest strands grazing her black sweatpants. In the dim night under the plates lit only by slivers of moonlight floating down through the gaps, her hair was a black void that was sometimes illuminated by a bolt of light as it caught a lamp. She had just let it down after a long day of work. Once upon a time she had let it flow freely but one stove accident later and her hair stayed tightly wrapped in a bun when she was cooking. But she always freed it outside the bar, regardless of the weather. This made windy days very amusing, something that Cloud always made a monumental effort to hide._

_As a breeze blew down the streets of the shantytown below the sector 7 plate, Tifa unzipped her black hoodie to take it in. She wore a tight white tank top underneath, the straps of her black sports bra visible underneath._

_“God, that feels good. I’m so glad that heat wave is over.”_

_Cloud let her stretch before responding._

_“Between me and the others? Could’ve been better. I told you, I’m not exactly a people person.”_

_“On that we agree. But I also meant after… I saw what was on the news.”_

_Cloud thought for a moment, then decided not to sugarcoat it. Tifa could handle the truth._

_“Shinra news lies…” He saw her face brighten momentarily. Cloud sighed. “… but not this time. It was as bad as it looked.”_

_Tifa exhaled for a few seconds._

_“It’s for a good cause,” she whispered. Cloud assumed she had forgotten he had super hearing because it seemed more to herself than to him. He had enough tact left to ignore her. Cloud began to get concerned after she didn’t move for a solid minute. He raised a hand, shaky and uncertain. Touching her was ok, right? They were friends. And friends were allowed to touch each other._

_Taking a deep breath, Cloud placed his hand on her shoulder. Tifa twitched slightly before lifting her eyes at him in surprise, the color of dried blood in the night. She managed a small laugh before covering Cloud’s hand with her own._

_“Smile, Cloud. You look scary.”_

_Cloud tilted his head to the side. Scary? He always looked like this. A small ache pulsed in the back of his head, before quickly fading._

_Tifa shook her head. She removed the hand on her shoulder, grasping it with both of her own._

_“Never mind. Thank you, Cloud.” She took a deep breath before continuing. Her voice was firmer than it was a moment ago. “I’m in the mood to spar again. Would you be okay with that?”_

_Cloud raised an eyebrow. He and Tifa sometimes sparred, but only on her days off. It was almost midnight now, and they would surely risk waking someone up._

_“Tifa, are you sure? It’s pretty late. You aren’t tired?” Also, it was still very hot and humid. Not deathly hot, but hot enough to discourage physical activity._

_Her hands never let go of his. She stared into his eyes, red on blue, until the sound of a yowling cat broke the silence. She dropped his hand._

_“Yeah, I’m sure. And I know what you’re thinking. We’ll be responsible. Let’s go.”_

_She took a few steps forward and glanced back at him. Cloud saw pleading desperation in her eyes. He sighed before following her._

_She took him along the dirt road past their apartment building. They passed house after house. Some were made of corrugated sheets of metal, while others were more respectable; they were constructed of brick or concrete. But none were luxurious. After a bit of walking, they made it to a chain link fence. The gate was made of chain link like the rest of the fence but with several locks. A bearded man with an automatic rifle stood guard. Beyond the fence was a maze of crevices in between tall cliffs of sandstone. Far beyond the rocks stood the wall that stood between Midgar and the surrounding desert. The wall wasn’t guarded, but no one dared to venture beyond anyway. Why would they? While within was misery, beyond was death. The man called out to them as they got closer._

_“Who’s there? Show yerselves!”_

_“It’s just us, Wymer,” called Tifa._

_“Tifa? What’re you doing out here? It’s damn late.”_

_“I thought I’d go for a walk,” she said apprehensively._

_Wymer raised an eyebrow. “You know what’s back there, right? Scrap boulevard ain’t a great place at night.”_

_“I’ll be fine, Wymer. You’ve seen me handle myself. Besides, I’ve got Cloud with me.”_

_Wymer turned to Cloud, standing beside Tifa with his arms crossed, whom had had been ignoring thus far. He eyed the sword on his back. Cloud was used to the looks, but he was immensely grateful that Wymer was judging his sword instead of him. He raised a hand to wave. Wymer nodded back._

_“Fine. If you need anything, yell real loud. But I don’t anticipate hearin’ y’all.”_

_He took a key out from a ring of several and unlocked the door one lock at a time. Ten seconds in and Cloud was wondering if slashing open the chain link fence would be received poorly. Thirty seconds later, the gate was open._

_“Have fun.”_

_Wymer pushed open his door with the butt of his rifle. Tifa walked through and Cloud followed and the two trudged down dirt paths for the better part of an hour._

_Cloud didn’t know what this was about. Tifa had the bar to manage in the morning and she was always particular about getting enough sleep. She stopped in a rocky clearing._

_“Alright,” she started, businesslike. “Get yourself ready. This looks like a good spot.”_

_Cloud eyed his gloves. Metal rings lined the joints on the fingers of his left and the right was a simple glove. With his strength, Cloud could probably accidentally decapitate her if he hit her with his left glove._ If _he could hit her. He stripped off his gloves and placed them and his sword against a rocky cliff face. He glanced at Tifa, who had stripped off her pants and hoodie leaving her in her white top and black shorts. Her red steel-toed boots gleamed in the moonlight. Her hands too were bare. Cloud frowned. She usually wore her combat gloves and arm braces when fighting him. Tifa interrupted his thoughts._

_“Hey are you ok? We can go back to bed if you really want to.” She sounded uncertain for the first time since she had proposed the idea. Cloud simply raised his fists in response. Tifa nodded and smiled, raising her own._

_For a moment there was silence. Then Tifa burst forward, aiming a kick directly at Cloud’s head. He raised his forearm to block, wincing as the heel of the boot made contact. That was going to leave a nasty bruise. As Tifa pummeled Cloud, blow after blow, he began to realize he stood no chance against her. She was fiercer than she usually was. Hell, she was beating the absolute shit out of him. He caught glimpses of her face, twisted with rage. That scared him. Tifa wasn’t usually like this. She was angry, but at what?_

_At_ him?

_No, that couldn’t be. Cloud felt a thrill of fear. Tifa was his only friend. If she hated him, then what? He quickly shoved it back down. He didn’t need anyone. He had been alone long enough, like during the war –_

_A splitting pain erupted in his head and he stumbled, clutching at his hair. A moment later, Tifa’s boot broke his nose. Cloud felt himself go airborne. His headache receded just before he hit the ground, allowing him one thought:_

Shit.

_He landed in a puff of dust, hissing in pain through his clenched teeth. The rage in Tifa faded as she began to look horrified._

_“Oh my god, Cloud! I—”_

_She barely had a chance to react before a doomrat bowled into her. As Tifa wrestled with the vermin, Cloud struggled to his feet, no longer trying to stop the blood from pouring out of his nose. Letting a doomrat sneak up on them was a rookie move._

_From experience, he knew how to put on his gloves quickly. With his right hand he grasped the hilt of his sword and heaved it in front of him. The familiar weight in his hands calmed him. He heard dirt shifting and turned to the side to see two more rats burrowing out the earth. The pain in his face forgotten, Cloud lunged forward._

_The first one he slashed in the side. As it reeled in pain, screeching. He slashed again, cleaving the beast in two. The second lunged. Cloud rolled to the side and as it turned to face him, snarling, he summoned a thunderbolt. The doomrat screamed, then went silent. It died smoking with its hair standing on end._

_Cloud stood up straight, fatigued from the powerful thunder spell. He glanced down at himself. What a sight he was, bloodstained and sweaty. He saw Tifa out the corner of his eye finally win her wrestling match with the rat. Pinning it with her leg, she punched it. And again. And again._

_Before long the rat was a bloody mess. But Tifa continued to punch it._

_“Fucking… rat… bastards…” Cloud heard her snarl in between blows. The remains of the rat offered no cushion between her and the ground anymore. Cloud could hear the sickening thud of flesh as she continued to pound what was now just a bloody rock._

_“Shinra… Mako… Avalanche… I fucking hate all of it!”_

_“Tifa…” Cloud said gently. No response._

_“Tifa!” he yelled. He knelt down and put a hand on her arm to force her around. She lashed an elbow at his face, but this time he managed to move his head to the side. He held both her wrists in his hands, and they stared at each other for a moment before Tifa broke down completely. She collapsed against him, sobbing._

_Cloud was startled as she leaned on him, but he managed to not fall over. He saw her hands, raw and bloody. One of her fingers was bent unnaturally; the bone was visible through another knuckle. Cloud winced._

_He fished out a healing materia from his pocket. As Tifa continued to cry, he gently placed his hands on her wrists and concentrated. Within seconds, her hands had begun to knit back together. It would be a few hours before they healed completely; Cloud wasn’t the best at healing spells. But at least she would be fine._

_Cloud knelt there while Tifa’s sobs faded to sniffs. The whole time he had had no idea what to do with his hands so he had just placed them on her shoulders. A few moments later he realized she had gone still._

_“Cloud?” she whispered. He squeezed her shoulder in response._

_“Do you ever… miss home?_

_He thought about it. The honest answer was… no. The kids there had all hated him, and all he had was Tifa, right? He tried not to think about it. That stone was better left unturned. But Nibelheim had nothing for him. Even when_ he _destroyed it, Cloud had not felt any attachment to the town. Only a desire to stop innocent people from dying._

_Tifa started talking again. Cloud supposed he had spent too long thinking._

_“I’m glad we left. I’m glad I met you again. My papa would be so mad right now.”_

_She chuckled._

_“Yeah. Your dad never had faith you could handle yourself,” said Cloud. Tifa’s dad had been an asshole. But she had loved him, and the memory of his death at Sephiroth’s hand still haunted Cloud. He stopped thinking about it as the ghost of another migraine haunted his head._

_“Thanks for the faith, Cloud,” she said. She moved off him and sat up, no longer leaning. She gasped when she saw his face. Cloud supposed the blood was a lot worse than he thought._

_“Did I do this?” she asked, aghast._

_“Yeah but it’s fine. I’ll be ok. The mako, remember?” As he tried to smile comfortingly, his tongue slipped into a gap in his teeth where he supposed Tifa must have knocked one out._

_“But it has to hurt, right? Here let me heal you, come on —” she began frantically before Cloud cut her off._

_“I’ll be fine. And… I seem to remember promising an old friend I’d be there for her whenever she was in trouble. Seems like getting hurt for her is part of the promise.” The memory sprang to him unbidden, their conversation on the water tower in the middle of the night still fresh in his mind after all these years._

_The worried expression never left her face even as she exhaled slightly in laughter._

_“Are you sure?” she asked. One hand came up and gently traced his bloodied, now crooked nose._

_Cloud took her hands in his own and turned them so she could see the ruinous mess she had left them in._

_“Tifa, I think you should worry about yourself right now.”_

_She silently stared, taking in the damage._

_“I really made a mess of things, didn’t I? I’m sorry, Cloud. I never meant for us to get hurt.”_

_Cloud got to his feet. He extended one hand to Tifa and when she didn’t take it, he grabbed her shoulders and hoisted her to her feet. He held on for a bit longer to ensure she didn’t collapse before speaking up._

_“It sounds like you needed to blow off some steam. Let’s go home. The blood will probably attract more monsters and it doesn’t look like either of us are good to fight.” He sheathed his sword and slipped his left arm around Tifa in case she fell again. He felt her lean against him as they both slowly shuffled home._

_As they left he said one last thing._

_“You know, I charge extra for letting my employer beat the shit out of me.”_

_She laughed for real this time._

_…_

_As they arrived at Tifa’s door, she stepped away from Cloud’s side. He let his arm fall._

_Tifa paused. She turned to him and hesitated._

_“Thanks again Cloud,” she said quietly, before becoming strict. “You take a shower, alright? If you need anything, DO NOT be afraid to wake me up. Please. Take care of yourself.”_

_Cloud sighed._

_“Fine. I’ll do my best.” He went inside. Leaning his sword on the wall, he stripped off his clothes before stepping into an ice-cold shower. Cloud traced his hands along the scars on his stomach, thighs, foot, ass, arm. Finally, he reached a hand to his face. He felt his nose. It was off-center. Unless he fixed it, it would stay that way. He remembered what Tifa said about coming to her for help, but he refused. Better to not trouble her. He opened the shower door and grabbed his sword, trying not to get any water on his floor. He bit the hilt and pinched his nose with one hand. He counted down._

3… 2…

_Before he could think about it too much, he jerked his nose back into place with a snap. Tears filled his eyes and his vision darkened. He tasted leather and steel as he bit into the sword. After a few moments, it was over. He returned his wet sword to the wall and turned off the shower._

_Cloud Strife toweled off and went to bed only in his underwear, finding himself suddenly averse to his bloodstained clothes now that he was no longer wearing them._

_…_

He had really fucked up this time, he realized as he saw his fingers dangle limply from his hand.

_Dammit._

The fingers would fix themselves, but severed body parts would take a while. Maybe it would be good to use a healing spell. No, he would need the mana for tomorrow’s mission.

Cloud stared at himself in the mirror. Truthfully, he looked like dogshit. His nose was still a little crooked from the fight a few days ago. He saw split ends in his hair. How was it fair that he had split ends and Tifa didn’t? Heavy bags sagged under his eyes. The remains of a split lip haunted his face. The only things that didn’t look awful were his eyes. They twinkled and shimmered back at him through the mirror. Cloud hated them.

It was their fault everyone looked at him weird. It was their fault no one trusted him. It was their fault that he was treated like a rabid dog, a ticking time bomb. If he had known back then what being as strong as Sephiroth would entail…

He shook himself. He had to stay focused. It was a big day tomorrow.

Cloud glanced at his fingers dangling by threads of flesh. He would love nothing more than to rip them all off and leave them to grow back, damn how long it took. But he needed his hand ready as soon as possible. 

He grabbed a roll of tape he kept on a shelf, one of his very few possessions, and quickly wrapped it around his hands, making sure to match his fingers to their stumps as closely as possible. Once he had his hand securely wrapped in thick silver tape, Cloud went back to sleep. The pain in his hand had almost vanished.

The next morning, around five, the pain came back with a vengeance. Cloud’s entire right arm was sickly hot to the touch. It was an infection, Cloud realized with exasperation. He tried to remember where his sword had been. The last thing it had touched was… the god damn doomrats. Whatever diseases had been kicking around in their blood were living on his sword and were now writhing around in his arm.

It was a persistent ache, compounding the humiliation of having to brush his teeth and get through his morning with his non dominant hand. As he laced up his boots, he arrived at the part he was dreading. Cloud, a right-handed man, now had to wield his two-handed broadsword with only his left hand. Taking a deep breath, he swung it up and over his left shoulder, sheathing it on his back. At least, he tried to.

“God damn- shit!”

The spine of the sword, opposite the edge, had come up and hit him on the head as he tried to maneuver it over. He tried again. This time, the flat of the blade hit him in the face. He felt his nose start to bleed again. On the third try, he finally got it. Cloud left his room disgruntled and annoyed, bits of tissue stuffed in his nostrils.

The humidity of the previous few days had resolved itself into a storm. Cloud looked in the distance as thick sheets of acrid water poured in between the plates, carrying all the muck from the topside’s ground. Thunder rolled across the sky. Through the din of the storm, Cloud’s ears could hear the noises of topside: the cars, the footsteps, the vague chatter, hundreds of meters above. Cloud tried his best to ignore the sickly heat radiating off his arm.

If there was one benefit of the slums, it was that people could work regardless of weather. From just outside his door, Cloud watched people resume their daily duties: the watch heading to work, shopkeeps taking their spots, stray cats flitting about.

Cloud reached the bottom of the stairs from his first-floor apartment and began to walk to Seventh Heaven before he was interrupted by his landlord, Marle, an old woman with a long coat and messy white hair.

“Hey big guy! You’ve been treating Tifa well, right?”

Cloud scowled internally. What he wouldn’t give to live somewhere else. But the free rent outweighed the inconvenience of an annoying landlord. He thought of Tifa kicking him in the face.

_Maybe you should be asking how she treats me you old fuck._

Cloud wasn’t bitter about getting kicked in the face, but he was annoyed at this woman assuming he was a moron or some sort of creep. He held his tongue. It wouldn’t do him or Tifa any good to assault his landlord.

He simply nodded and continued his walk, leaving Marle to mutter to herself as she did whatever she did all day. The rain calmed him.

Cloud walked into the empty bar. It looked strangely sad void of its patrons. Cloud spotted Tifa in the back doing dishes, humming a song to herself. He heard footsteps above his head: a series of heavy thuds underscored by smaller pitter-pats. Barret and Marlene were awake. Tifa turned around as she heard him approach the bar.

“Good morning, Cloud. How did you sl- holy shit!”

Cloud had forgotten how much of a sight he was, tissues in his nose and tape wrapped around his right hand. He awkwardly lifted his sword off his back and leaned it against the counter.

“Just had a little accident in the middle of the night. I’m fine, really.”

Tifa stared apprehensively at his right hand.

“Are you sure you’ll be able to go on the mission today?”

Cloud turned to the side so his infected arm was facing away from her.

“Tifa, I’ll be fine. It’s my job. You know I heal fast.” His voice sounded stuffy.

She stared for another moment before turning around and continuing to wash another glass. Cloud noticed she was wearing her favorite outfit: tight white crop top and short leather miniskirt with shorts on underneath and suspenders. Two pistols were in holsters on either side of her hips. Her red boots shined on her feet and her hair was loose, tied at the bottom with a red band. On both her arms she wore her usual red braces.

“I’ll make sure you get paid for it; I promise. I know how much you hate being stuck here,” she said, putting down her glass and smiling at him.

Cloud fidgeted. Was her voice sad or was he imagining it? A pregnant silence grew in between them, a silence broken by Cloud when he could stand it no longer.

“Tifa, I…” He paused, trying to choke out the words. “I don’t hate being here.” When Tifa smiled wider, he clarified hastily. “There’s still more work around. The people like having a local mercenary.” Goddamn dolt. Why did he have to add that?

Her smile didn’t falter.

“Good,” she breathed, putting her hand on his forearm. “After we make it back from this, I’ll make sure that work keeps coming. Wouldn’t want you to start hating it here.” She held his eyes. Cloud felt himself unable to look away.

Barret stormed through the back door, guffawing with Marlene on his shoulder. The moment ended.

“So, you never answered my question. Why did the chocobo cross the road?” laughed Barret.

Marlene scrunched up her face in thought.

“Umm, because someone left greens on the other side?”

“Nice try, baby. Wanna know what the real answer is?”

“Just tell me, daddy!”

“Well the real answer is…” Barret reached up and poked Marlene in the side. “He saw the sweetest and smartest little girl on the Planet on the other side!”

Marlene erupted into giggles as Barret continued to tickle her after he had lowered her to the floor. She was dressed differently today, clad in a pair of denim overalls with a flower centered on the chest and a pink shirt underneath. Barret had tied her hair in little pigtails. She reminded Cloud of a little farmhand. Ironic in Midgar.

He saw Tifa gazing at Marlene with a look he usually never saw on her face. She was calm, happy. As she didn’t have a care about the Planet or her past.

_Why does she always look scared and sad around me?_

Cloud sat glowering, his head resting on his good hand as he watched Tifa, Marlene, and Barret exchange pleasantries. Tifa picked Marlene up and swung her around. Barret did not look concerned like he had when Cloud tried to greet Marlene when Barret had first hired him. After Marlene left to go play with her friend Betty, Barret turned to them. The joy drained from his rich brown eyes, a steely determination refilling them.

He glanced at Cloud’s hand.

“What’re you, tryin’ to be me?” he snorted. “Least you got the hand right. I sure hope your ass can still do the mission today.”

Cloud just stared at him steadily. Barret was tiring. Too loud. Too optimistic.

“I can be left-handed when I have to be,” Cloud lied calmly. Suddenly remembering that his lie would be exposed the moment he tried to sheath his sword, Cloud opened his mouth to amend his statement when Jessie barged through the door, dressed casually.

“What is up, my fellow terrorists? We ready to do some crimes or what?” she called, obnoxiously loud for how early it was.

Tifa stared daggers at her.

“Can you _please_ take this seriously?”

Jessie winked at her. She leaned in close to Cloud’s face.

“Good morning, babe.”

“You’re being a lot this morning, you know that?”

“Aren’t I always? You doin’ ok? Your face and hand are kinda fucked up.”

“I’m fine,” Cloud snapped.

“Well if that’s the case, how about dropping by after the mission. My house isn’t half bad,” she propositioned, undeterred.

Cloud marveled at her brazen flirting, especially in front of everyone else.

“We’ll see,” he said, noncommittal.

“Good enough for me,” Jessie said, and pranced to the door where Wedge had just arrived.

“Hey fatass, good morning! Wanna eat? she said to him before leading him off for another conversation.

Cloud stared for a moment longer before turning to Barret.

“I can’t promise anything, but I can still do the mission.”

When Barret hesitated, Cloud took his sword with his left hand and swung it up and over his shoulder. Luckily, he didn’t break his nose.

Barret let out a long sigh before replying.

“Fine. But if you slow us down, I’m leaving your ass behind.”

At that, he turned away.

“Don’t worry, I’m sure you’ll be fine,” said Tifa, sounding unsure.

“I’ve faced worse,” said Cloud, attempting to reassure her.

The rest of the morning passed uneventful. Jessie excused herself saying she had to analyze some of her explosives while Wedge spoke to Barret. She winked at Cloud as she opened the front door.

“My door is always open, tough guy.”

Cloud put his hand to his forehead. Had he really thought she was endearing? Jessie cackled and left.

“You guys sure you don’t need me?”

“We’ll be fine, Wedge,” said Barret gently. “Besides. I need you to hold down the home front. No one knows this sector better than you.”

Wedge nodded.

“I got you, boss,” he said, saluting. “Hey Marlene, wanna meet my cats?”

“Oh boy, would I! Can Betty come too?” she squealed.

Barret chuckled as the two left the bar. He reached in his pocket and put on his sunglasses. Gone was Barret Wallace. Standing before them was the leader of the ecoterrorist group Avalanche.

“Alright. Let’s go. Your arm better not fuck this up, merc.”

Tifa followed him out, glancing back at Cloud with an apologetic look on her face. He sighed and tried to flex the fingers of his right hand within his glove. They moved, a good sign. But the little movement set off a wave of pain through his right arm. Cloud grimaced, glad that Tifa and Barret had left. He could do this. It was only one mission. And if it was anything like the previous one, he would barely need to fight. 

Cloud looked around at the deserted interior of Seventh Heaven. Tifa’s departure would ensure it would stay that way for the rest of the day. Cloud felt that same sadness he had felt when he first walked in. This place deserved people inside. Tifa had worked so hard on it. After a few moments, Cloud too left, stopping only to take one last look at the inside of the building.

As Cloud walked to the train station, he looked around at the hustle and bustle of the sector. There was running water here, no thanks to Shinra. It wasn’t the best water, but it was the best a rag tag group of engineers could establish. Electricity was also in plentiful supply. While mako did heavily damage the planet, it was a very good fuel source. Even the garish lifestyle of topside didn’t use all of the energy that mako provided. 

The train ride passed without incident. Though the security had been heightened following the destruction of the first reactor, Jessie’s fakes held up. After the train ride, they would their way through the soaking wet streets of topside, making their way to reactor 8. The fancy houses and businesses made Barret frown heavily. Biggs had cleared security ahead of them and busted open a maintenance entrance that was normally used by robots. Security had not been nonexistent however, and Cloud, Barret, and Tifa all had their share of destroying Shinra hardware on their journey to the reactor.

“It’s been weird,” said Biggs. “All the security has been either drones or sweepers. I guess they’re trying to automate that, too.”

Cloud did not miss the way the other two inconspicuously intercepted a drone whenever one got too close and took a stray hit for him whenever he let his sword drop. He was grateful, but only showed it by grunting and shrugging. By the time they had arrived at the maintenance entrance, the infection had progressed significantly. Redness crawled up from the tape he had wrapped his fingers in. His left arm hurt from wielding his sword with one hand. 

But as they got closer to the reactor core, something was eating Cloud, something other than the infection. Something wasn’t right. This deep in a reactor, there would be no humans due to the mako, but outside the reactor there should have been dozens of them. But Cloud had seen no one as they passed the reactor’s main entrance to get to the maintenance hatch. Even inside the passageway, Clouds superhuman ears could hear nothing: no conversations, no footsteps, and no signs of life. The tension became unbearable as they reached the end of the maintenance tunnel. Biggs too had seen no humans while he was scouting and clearing the route.

“Oh man, that was easy,” said Barret triumphantly as they stepped out of a side door into the great reactor chamber. Mako churned beneath their feet as its stench forced its way down their throats. Cloud winced internally he as “We ain’t seen a single person. And those sweepers they sent at us weren’t shit. Let’s set off the fireworks and go home. I could go for a bowl of soup.” As he stepped forward, the realization struck Cloud like thunder.

“Barret!” Cloud hissed, grabbing his massive forearm and forcing him to stop. “There hasn’t been a single person because Shinra doesn’t want to waste manpower on us. We’re cornered now on their turf. We walked into a fucking trap!”

As if on cue, the main reactor door grinded open across the room.

“Well I didn’t believe it when they said you’d be stupid enough to walk right in,” a sly voice called. Two figures in black suits strode in the room. The one who had just spoken was a red-haired man, pale and skinny. He sauntered into the core and shoved his hands in his pocket, smirking at them. The other was a bald man with light brown skin. His beard was cropped closely to the harsh lines of his surprisingly handsome face. Everything about him was serious, from his gait to his posture as he came to ahalt next to his partner.

Cloud tightened his grip on his sword. Turks.

The red-haired man continued. 

“I mean come on; did it not surprise you that we didn’t even send a single person at you? That the robots were so easy to fight?” He cackled.

“Reno,” the bald man said in a voice as rich and deep as a bass drum. “Focus. We got work to do.”

“Alright, partner.” Reno pointed to Barret. “Damn dude, sick fuckin’ arm. What, you get tired of touching yourself with that hand or something?” Barret scowled.

“Nah. I just held a gun so often in this hand shooting punks like you I figured I may as well just skip the middleman.” Cloud heard rage in Barret’s voice, but when he looked at his face, Barret was calm. 

“Aw nice response man; no one’s ever threatened to shoot me before. Anyway, we gotta kill you, big guy. Sorry. You, bartender” he said, pointing to Tifa. She looked away, embarrassed. “We were told to kill you too, but Rude here likes you. So say thanks.”

Rude blushed, his expression unchanging. “Reno. Shut up.”

“Shit, Rude. Good taste.” Reno smirked, taking a close look at Tifa’s chest. A dull rage pulsed in Cloud’s stomach.

“Reno,” said Rude, an edge to his voice. “Shut. Up.”

Cloud clenched his jaw and drew his sword left-handed, holding it up as best he could with one hand. He hoped he still looked intimidating. The thought faded as Cloud felt his right hand hang limply at his side.

“You guys are Turks,” he growled. “Why are you here?”

Reno took a closer look at Cloud. Recognition dawned on him as his gaze traveled up Cloud’s sword and met the pulsing green of Cloud’s eyes.

“Oh, shit dude, a Soldier. It’s an honor my good sir. Can I please suck you off? Here and now?” Reno made a big show of getting on his knees before standing back up and chortling at his own joke. “What rank were you, hotshot?”

“First class.”

“Oh man dude. At least _try_ to fuckin’ fool me.”

Reno opened his mouth to say something else obnoxious, when Rude gave him a pointed look.

“It’s nothin’ personal. We got a job to do,” said Rude when he turned back to Cloud.

Reno sheepishly rubbed the back of his neck.

“The regular dipshits were deemed unworthy of you guys. You should feel special. Especially you, blondie. Hojo wants you back. Something about a lost toy?”

_Hojo… Nibelheim… Sephiroth… Z- Z-…_

Cloud clutched his head as a flash flood of pain drowned all his senses. For a moment all he saw was green. When he came to again, he was milliseconds away from Rude’s foot in his face.

_Not this time._

As he blocked the strike with his sword, he made a mental note to thank Tifa for teaching him that move the hard way. A bolt of pain shot through his left hand. He wasn’t quite used to using it yet, so the impact of Rude’s foot had exacerbated the already-weird position Cloud had forced his left arm in to block the strike.

As Rude recovered, he saw Reno pull a baton out of his jacket. Arcs of electricity flashed up and down its length.

“I almost forgot something. Three on two wouldn’t really be a fair fight, would it?”

He whistled and shock drones flew in through a vent at the top of the reactor core.

“Let’s get ‘em, partner,” hooted Reno.

“The Turk two-step,” said Rude quietly.

Cloud watched as Rude lunged at Tifa and the two quickly fell into a sort of dance. The quick flurry of blows was hypnotizing, and Cloud would have lost himself in a trance had Reno not chosen that moment to charge. Before Cloud could blink, he was on top of him and Cloud barely had time to raise his sword to block. Reno smirked as Cloud deflected the blow.

“If you really are first class, make me believe it, bitch!”

He leapt back and came back at Cloud. Reno was fast, as fast as the electricity he so effortlessly wielded. For a little while, all three of them were locked in battle. Cloud and Tifa were occupied with Reno and Rude while Barret was angrily attempting to stop drones from overwhelming them.

With every glimpse of Tifa and Rude, Cloud could see Tifa gaining the upper hand. Rude was clearly holding back; his blows were too weak and slow. It was screwing him over. But Cloud was on the edge of defeat. Any offense was out of the question. His defense was crumbling. It was all he could to parry Reno’s never-ending flurry of electric attacks. He had been fighting left-handed all day, and his other arm was worse than useless. Cloud’s skin burned where the baton made it past his clumsy guard. He saw Barret out of the corner of his eye gunning down drones, covered in burns. Part of him wanted to react as he saw an electric blast strike Barret in the arm, but his attention was drawn back to Reno.

The previously all-encompassing buzzing of the drones was fading as Barret thinned the herd. Dimly to his left he heard Rude cry out. Tifa was gaining the upper hand. As Cloud blocked yet another strike with his sword, Reno leaned on the blow, trying to force Cloud back. His left arm pounded.

“What’s the matter? You sick or something?”

Cloud felt himself about to buckle, when the sound of broken glass made Reno jerk his head to look at Rude and Tifa. She had struck him in the face, shattering his glasses. Blood dripped from his cheeks where shards had embedded themselves.

“Rude!”

Reno let up for a little bit, and that was enough for Cloud. This was going to hurt. With his burning right arm, he took a massive swing and drove his mangled hand into Reno’s face. The Turk flew several meters backwards and skidded to a halt on the metal floor. As his hand throbbed, blood and pus leaking from the tape, Cloud smiled weakly with satisfaction. It felt awfully good to punch that smug son of a bitch in the face. Perhaps that wasn’t the best decision, however. He couldn’t keep a straight face as his right hand exploded in pain. And as Reno sat up, Cloud saw his shattered and bloody nose, but most of all he saw Reno’s eyes travel up his arm and to his face, where they saw it twisted in agony. He smiled through the teeth Cloud had just tried his best to smash.

“Rude!” Reno yelled, almost giddy. “His arm’s fucked! Stop dancing with your girlfriend and help me get him!”

Both Tifa and Barret whirled around to glance at Cloud. While Tifa was distracted, Rude jabbed her in the stomach. She collapsed, wheezing.

“Sorry,” he said, blushing. Cloud had a moment of confusion before Rude sprinted at him. At the last possible second, he raised the sword and braced himself with both arms, left on the handle and right on the flat of the blade. For a few moments, Cloud was able to defend himself. Rude’s blows began to weaken, and Tifa began to get back to her feet. Cloud only had to hold out for a few more seconds. Just as Rude’s fist was about to make contact with the sword again, Cloud threw himself backwards. The sudden give made Rude lurch forward and Cloud prepared to cave in his face as he had done to Reno.

A burning pain erupted in his side. Cloud screamed, and both his arms seized up. Then the pain stopped. He fell to his knees and heard his sword clatter to the ground. Rude kicked it and Cloud saw it skitter away. He saw Reno’s face as Rude moved to seized him from behind. Pain lingered from where Reno had stabbed him in the side with the electric baton. The stench of his own burning flesh filled his nose.

“Normally I don’t do cheap shots, but you fucked up my face. Still, it was a nice fight, _first class_ ,” he drawled.

Cloud saw through his blurry vision Barret shooting down a new wave of drones while roaring in rage. Tifa ran towards them, clutching her side and calling his name desperately. As Rude dragged him off, Reno tossed a series of electric grenades behind him. Cloud heard Tifa scream as she too was electrocuted. He smelled burning hair.

‘Tifa!” he yelled weakly. 

Barret heaved Tifa over his shoulder, wincing as he stuck his hand in the electric field created by Reno’s grenades. He was a mess of ash and burns. One of the lenses of his glasses was broken. In his exposed eye Cloud saw a mixture of emotions. Anger, determination, fear. He caught Cloud’s eye and nodded.

“I’m not leaving you behind, Cloud! So, don’t you fuckin’ die on me!”

Barret ran off as even more robot security poured in.

As the heavy metal reactor doors shut behind him, his eyelids soon to follow, Cloud sighed into Rude’s back.

_Yeah. Sure. Wasn’t planning on it._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

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